The Fisheries Research Institute has developed an aquaculture technique that could mass produce tetrasporophytes of red sea plume, a seaweed that could significantly reduce methane emissions from ruminants, which is in line with the nation’s goal of net zero by 2050.
Research showed that cattle-produced methane could be reduced by up to 90 percent simply by adding 1 percent of dried red sea plume to cattle feed, the institute said.
Institute research fellow Hsu Tzu-yan (許自研) yesterday said that previously adopted techniques of cultivating red sea plume under artificial conditions invariably failed during the mass production process.
Photo courtesy of the Fisheries Research Institute via CNA
That was a challenge for the research team until the seaweed’s tetrasporophytes were identified and used in place of gametophytes, which were collected from natural environments or grown in simulated environments for research.
“While gametophytes die off in summers due to high temperatures, tetrasporophytes of red sea plume are alive year-round and are easier to grow under artificial conditions,” Hsu said.
“However, these threadlike tetrasporophytes are small and usually intertwined with other algae, making them much more difficult to discern and collect in the wild,” he said, adding that about 100g of tetrasporophytes are harvested per person per day in natural sea environments.
The institute focused its research on mass producing tetrasporophytes of red sea plume and found that rough algae prevented red sea plume from proliferating.
“We finally developed a technique that could purify the aquaculture environment by inhibiting or removing competing rough algae to maintain the dominant ratio of red sea plume,” Hsu said.
With the technique, the amount of cultivated tetrasporophytes could be boosted by 300g to 700g per tonne of seawater, he added.
Red sea plume is rich in bromides, an active substance that could effectively decrease methane emissions from ruminants, Hsu said, adding that tetrasporophytes contain higher levels of bromides than gametophytes.
Data from an in vitro rumen fermentation showed that at the same dose level of 0.5 percent, red sea plume gametophytes cultivated by the institute inhibited 98.3 percent of methane, while gametophytes collected from the wild inhibited 91.24 percent.
The inhibition rate of gametophytes climbed further to 99.82 percent after the dose was raised to 1 percent, it showed.
Animal testing also showed that methane produced by cattle burps could be reduced by 60 percent with only 0.15 percent of red sea plume incorporated into cattle feed.
The mass production technique has been transferred to a domestic biotech company, marking the beginning of the integration of ocean technology into the livestock industry, the institute said.
The technique not only advances low-carbon feed production technology, but would also help the development of low-carbon dairy products, it said.
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